Are Exams Fair?
DragonMech
Join Date: 2003-09-19 Member: 21023Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-09-19 Member: 21023Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
in Discussions
It's that wonderful time of year again... not Christmas. Exam week. A massive portion of your grade determined on a half dozen sheets of paper. This got me to thinking, is it really fair? I work my a** in class for two hours twice a week, take a three-hour lab, do lots of homework and I study a few hours a day. Should I have to take a test that equals a quarter of all that (1/5th the total grade)? Should anyone have to take a test like that? What's the point? And, most importantly, what do you think?
Comments
Some "get" it and write tests that see if you're "competent" in the material. Then it's a breeze and is a good system.
And then there are those **** that write tests designed to make you fail. Like the one I took today that was worth a whopping 40% of my final grade.
People that write tests like that make me want to club small animals.
Is life fair ?
Is it fair that a medical doctor can make one mistake and have that one mistake ruin their whole life ?
There are reasons to why these things are worth so much, they are the final application of you knowledge. You know it or you don't. You should know it all, you've devoted a semester to the content. How is a big test so bad ?
Don't get me wrong, yah, it sucks. But what does that have to do with fairness ?
To suceed is to fail.
Some states in the US have what are called regents exams. To get your HS diploma you must graduate with X amount of regents credits. You get these by passing regents level courses which are slightly more detailed, involved and in general harder. If you do not takes these classes and pass there finals, you get what is called a Local diploma.
While they wont say it, its considered really degrading if you only get a local one.
Anyways.
To get credit you must pass the end of the year regents finals etc.
This system is then used by every public school in the state. Such as in New York. This is called Standarized Testing here.
What people say is unfair about it is this.
Regents tests are obviously harder then local tests. And so they also have harder classes etc.
The only problem is that if you were take a more wealthy upper middle class school and compare their well paid teachers and their schools with more programs, courses availible etc school. Drop put rates are low, graduation rates and grade levels are higher.
to a lower class city school where there arnt as many additional classes available to them (such as specalized computer programing electives, engineering courses etc) lower paid not as expirienced teachers,
Drop put rates are higher, graduation rates are lower, and average student grades are lower etc.
Becasue of these differences students from the second example may not revieve the same quality education as the first group, yet with standardized state exames, they are held to the same expectations when exam time comes around.
yes. sorry to slap u in the face but it's gotta be done. people need to be tested in their knowledge before they can proclaim that they have qualifications, they act as an alabi to your mind when applying for a job.
Although I will say that having a large percentage of your overall grade riding on one test is not always the most accurate way to determine your level of knowledge. After all, everyone has a bad day sometimes and you may not test particularly well _on the day_.
Exams - in general - should count 30% tops IMO. With the rest being made up of a series of assignments etc. given throughout the year.
I agree. I'm not against the theory of exams, but I hate how much of your grade rides on them.
Most of the unversity courses I take have an end of semester exam, which usually consists of sitting in a big hall writing 2 - 3 essays about the course material. Now whilst being able to write an academic document such as an essay is quite important to a historian, the methods used are just plain out wrong. No historian will just go and write a document purely from memory; you research, cite primary and secondary sources, back up your arguements and most of all you don't try to do it in 40 minutes! Writing an essay in 40 minutes from memory proves essentially nothing except that you have a very basic grasp of the course material. It doesn't show that you can undertake research, or even write a compitant academic paper.
Thankfully, in my department at least the lecturers have been gradually shifting the emphasis more to major assignments, which makes a whole lot more sense. But when I look at some of the stuff my enginneering friends have to do... *shudder*
I'm used to exams now and quite frankly, I don't know how I'll handle my all internal paper.
Exams though are in fact fairly easy, and get easier as you go up in life. Especially when they start becoming essays. You can get away with not studying large sections of a course in some subjects if they offer choices in which essay questions you can answer. It's about working the system to your advantage.
And then before you know it you have *no* exams. Instead, you just have a 100+ page thesis to hand in instead. Then you really miss those exams...
Exams only make up 1/5 of your *FINAL* grade? That's damn easy going for exams!
I hate exams but they are necessary. It isn't just about your memory or if you can work under pressure, it's making sure that you can adapt and use the knowledge that you have. There isn't any other way it can be done.
Personally, I would have been grateful if I could have completed my degree without any exams as I'm hopeless at them. However, my exams counted for just over half my final grade and I knew my coursework would be hitting 90%-100% (I did I.T. with Psychology - the I.T. coursework didn't tax me at all) so I just had to make sure I answered every question on the exams.
Good luck with yours!
It does balance itself out a bit though. You get those folks who aren't that good at coursework or lab work but can do well in exams, while others struggle with exams but succeed in coursework. The weighting of the scores is a factor as well.
Of course, there are those smart sods who are just great at everything. Nasty little people.
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Until that day comes when we're able to read minds anyway.
There is the greater injustice anyway. It's having to go to University and fill your mind with utter garbage that you will never use again. But, it's necessary to get that degree to be an eligible part of the workforce.